


"Sports Night" Confidential

by Mireille



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-16
Updated: 2005-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Casey should never, ever have searched for his name on the Internet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is crack!fic. I understand that completely, and hope you do the same. I am not mocking any particular website, authors, or fic in this story. I am not mocking slash in general, which I obviously write, or RPS specifically, which I also write on occasion.
> 
> Also, I'm aware that during the time that _Sports Night_ (the fictional TV series) was on the air, while RPF existed, it was usually kept under the radar. In the universe where CSC is a real network, that changed a few years earlier than it did in this one, so very large, easy-to-find, fic archives existed.

"Have you seen this?" Casey demanded the moment Dan walked into their office--well, Dan's office, but there was no need to quibble over minor technicalities.

Dan gave him a very strange look. "Every day," he said. "It's called a computer."

"I _know_ that," Casey said, glaring at him. "I meant, what's on the computer."

Dan walked over to stand behind Casey, looking at the computer screen. Casey tipped his head back so that he could see Dan's reaction. Would he be shocked? Embarrassed? Furious? He had to admit, to himself at least, that he wasn't quite sure how _he_ was taking this. It'd be a lot easier to just react the way Dan did, and sort out exactly where on the "flabbergasted" spectrum he actually fell later.

What he wasn't expecting was for Dan to chuckle. "It's called the Web, Casey. It's part of the Internet. See, many people use the Internet for things _other_ than cheating on CSC.com polls--"

"One day, you're going to let that go."

"One day, yes, I will. Not today, though," Dan said, still sounding entirely too cheerful for a man who'd read what he should have just read.

"Anyway, I do know what the Web is, Danny. Charlie's been trying to teach me how to use the computer."

"I stand corrected."

"Yes, you do. And did you even read what this Web page _said_ , or were you too busy being smug and superior?"

"I was too busy being smug and superior," Dan said, grinning at him. 

"I thought so." Casey grinned back at him for a moment, just as smugly. Dan would see Casey's point in a minute. "Read it."

Dan leaned in a bit closer to Casey so that he could see the screen better. The site Casey was looking at featured a fairly hideous hot-pink-and-black color scheme, and Casey suspected Dan was having to squint to read it. At least, he'd had to when he read it. "' _Sports Night_ Confidential'? What is this, some kind of online gossip column?"

"Something like that. Go on, keep reading."

"'The stories on this archive are works of fiction. The authors and archivist make no claims as to their truth. ' _Sports Night_ Confidential' is not connected to CSC, Quo Vadimus, or any of the _Sports Night_ personnel. We just think Casey McCall and Dan Rydell are hot.'" Dan laughed "Well, _one_ of us is, anyway. The other of us thinks a Henley shirt makes a fashion statement."

"It does."

"Yes, but what is it saying, Casey, that's the question."

"Right now, it's saying 'keep reading before I have to kick your ass,'" he said, grinning back at Dan. This was going to be all right, he thought. He'd have someone to be horrified with, and so everything was going to be all right. 

"Okay, okay, I'm reading. What am I reading?" He frowned. "What do they mean, stories?"

"Go down farther." 

Dan reached past Casey for the mouse, scrolling a bit farther down the page. "' _We're Experiencing Technical Difficulties_ ,'" he read aloud. "'200,000 words. McCall/Rydell. During a power outage, Dan and Casey discover some things about one another.'" He clicked the link, and, as a page of text filled the screen, began reading silently.

Casey waited. He'd read this one himself before Dan came in--well, he'd read part of it, anyway. He'd read enough to know what was going on, at least. The first several paragraphs were okay; badly written, but nothing to get too worked up about.

"Casey, do I ever say 'gosh'?"

"Only sarcastically."

"That's what I thought. I've said it twice in five paragraphs."

"'Gosh' is not the problem here, Danny."

"What is the--what the _hell_?" Dan spluttered. "Casey, have you read this?"

"Indeed I have."

"No, I mean, have you read _this_?" Dan pointed to the screen.

Casey read a few words, enough to tell him that Dan had reached the point in the story where Casey had had to stop reading for the sake of his sanity. "I read it."

"Do you see what this--who is this?"

"Someone named 'Zinnia Rydell.' Probably not her real name."

"I don't care if it's her real name, did you see what she said we were _doing_? In our office? Our office has _glass walls_ , Casey, people can see what we're doing."

"Danny? Glass walls are not the problem here, either."

"They're one of the problems here." He frowned, reading a few more lines. "Also, either you have gills, or you just don't need to breathe at all."

"Has it dawned on you yet that you're reading a story about the two of us having sex?"

"Yes."

"With each other, Danny."

"Yes."

"And you're critiquing the _writing_?"

"Well, it's bad."

"And what about the content in general?"

"I'm trying really hard not to think about that."

"Someone wrote a story about us having sex!"

Dan had clicked the "back" button, and was looking at the main page again. "Correction. A lot of someones wrote a lot of stories about us having sex. Also about you having sex with Steve Sarris. And me having sex with Kelly. There's also one where you get pregnant. I don't know how they even begin to explain that one."

"I get _what_?"

Dan shook his head. "Look, Casey, this is freaking me out as much as it is you. But it's just some goofy stuff on the Internet. It's not the tabloids, it's not _Sports Illustrated_ , it's just some crazy people making up stories and not even trying to pretend they're real."

"So what are you saying?"

"That the best thing we can do about it is probably to just pretend that we never saw any of this."

Casey was silent for a minute, thinking. Finally, he sighed. "You could be right. We'll pretend we never saw it."

"And never, ever look at this Web page again."

"Agreed."

"And never mention it."

"That, my friend, will not be a problem."

***

In the end, it was neither Casey nor Dan who mentioned it again. It was Natalie. She and Kim were both looking at Kim's computer, which was not exactly an unheard-of occurrence, and when Dan and Casey walked through the newsroom, she looked up, grinning madly. "You guys _have_ to come see this," she said.

"If it's the dancing hamsters thing, I've seen it already," Dan said.

Casey frowned. "There are dancing hamsters? Like, ballet, or--"

"It's this animated thing," Dan said. "Get Charlie to show you."

"It's not the dancing hamsters," Natalie said. "It's something I think you two are both going to find very interesting."

"Look," Dan said, "while I am wholeheartedly in favor of the two of you looking at porn, and I don't care if you look at porn _here_ , since god knows there's nothing to do until the games start--" He blinked. "Why is no one denying that they're looking at porn?"

"Because we're looking at porn," Kim said. 

"Because they're looking at porn," Casey echoed, and then, a half-second later, "Oh, god, Danny, they're looking at porn." He didn't add, "They're looking at _that_ porn," but Dan must have read his mind. 

"Oh god."

"Why didn't I know you were double-jointed, Dan?" Natalie asked. "Are you keeping secrets again?"

"I'm not double-jointed."

"That's not what this says." She tapped the monitor with the eraser end of the pencil she was holding. "Or at least, what it implies, because let me tell you, mister, you're bending in ways the human body was not designed to bend."

"That isn't me."

"Oh, is that right?" Natalie grinned up at him and started to read. "Casey McCall, anchor for _Sports Night_ , gazed longingly across the room at his co-anchor and beloved soul mate, Dan Rydell.'"

"All right, that's it," Dan said. "If these people are going to write porn about me, why can't they at least write _good_ porn?"

Natalie and Kim both stared at him for a minute. "So you're saying that you want there to be _good_ porn about you and Casey," Kim finally said. 

"Yes." Casey looked over at him, bewildered, until Dan backpedaled. "I mean, no, but if there's going to be, why does it have to suck?" There was a moment's very awkward silence before he added, "Let's all pretend I used a different word there." 

"Can we pretend we're all having a different conversation?" Casey asked. 

"No," Natalie said. "I want to talk about your new career as a porn star."

"I'm not a porn star!"

"I have forty-seven stories on this Web page that say otherwise."

Dan glared at her. "We aren't porn stars. I'm not double-jointed, and if Casey were actually, uh, endowed like _that_ \--" he pointed at a particularly lurid bit of description on the screen-- "Wardrobe would be complaining that they had to get special pants for him." 

Casey glared at the giggling Kim and Natalie. "Did I fall into some kind of parallel universe in which this is funny? There are people writing stories about me having sex with Dan!"

"No," Kim said. "This is funny in the real universe. Besides, some of the stories are actually pretty good."

Casey gave her another dirty look and stormed off to their office. After a minute, Dan followed him, and Casey briefly considered telling him that maybe they shouldn't be following one another around like that. 

Then again, like Dan had said, this was the work of crazy people, and if he ignored it, it would all go away. 

***

Natalie and Kim were still giving them extremely evil grins at the rundown meeting. At least, Casey thought they were evil grins; Dan didn't seem bothered by them at all. 

Dan was doing a lot better at ignoring this than Casey was, Casey thought, and it didn't seem quite fair. This would all be easier to deal with if Dan was freaking out to the same degree that Casey was. At least then they'd be in it together, and that always made things easier to handle. 

Casey thought about that for a minute, and then decided that maybe he should handle things without Dan, under the circumstances. 

Dana came in and sat down, glancing at her notes. "First of all--" she began, and Casey heard himself interrupting her. 

From someplace in the far back corners of his mind, where most of him had already retreated in horror, Casey heard his voice saying, "Before we get started, I just want to make sure everyone knows that Danny and I aren't having sex." 

Natalie shook her head in amazement. Kim snickered. Elliott and Will and Dave just looked at one another; apparently they hadn't seen That Website (it had taken on capital-letter proportions in Casey's mind) yet. 

Dana just blinked for a moment before saying, sounding scarily calm, "Well, that's a relief, because it's hard enough getting you people to pay attention at rundown meetings when you keep your clothes on." 

***

"You're losing it, Casey," Dan said when he and Natalie had managed to convince Dana that Casey _didn't_ need to have his head examined, and the two of them had retreated to the safety of their office. 

"I'm not losing it."

"You announced to the entire rundown meeting that we aren't having sex."

"Well, we aren't." 

"Neither are Will and I, and I don't need to announce that to the world. I just figure everyone knows."

"Apparently everyone _doesn't_ know." 

Dan blinked at him. "Who thinks I'm having sex with Will?"

"I was talking about you and me, Danny."

"Everyone who knows us knows better. Just because some of our fans are a little strange--"

"How do you know?"

Dan blinked. "What?"

"It could be someone we know." 

" _What_ could be?"

"Zinnia Rydell. Or Caseyzgrrl. Or any of the other people who write that stuff." 

"Casey? You really need to stop thinking about this."

"But what if it _is_ someone we know?"

"Then someone we know is crazy, which would not be a completely improbable event." Dan shook his head. "No one we know is writing that, though. They wouldn't be able to resist the urge to tell us if they were."

"Well, no. Maybe not. They can spell. But what if they're thinking it? Look at all the authors' notes on those stories. They keep talking about how obvious we are, and our body language, and what if everyone thinks so?"

"They have those disclaimers at the top of the stories. _They_ don't even think we're really having sex. Why should our friends?"

Casey just looked at him for a long moment. "What if they're right?"

Dan laughed. "Casey? If I'd had sex with you, you'd remember it." He must have thought of Bobbi Bernstein then, because after a moment, he said, "Even if I didn't."

"I don't mean that we've had sex."

"That's a relief, because you were really starting to worry me." Dan leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out. 

Casey realized he was looking at the long denim-clad stretch of Dan's legs, and made himself look away. Then he decided that firmly heterosexual men who were not even remotely attracted to their best friends didn't _worry_ about whether or not looking in the general direction of their friend's legs made them gay, and looked back. Then he went for the middle ground and looked at the arm of the couch. "Aren't you going to ask me what I did mean?"

"If I don't, do we get to stop talking about it?"

"It's just that I've been thinking."

"Okay, I'll take that as a no. What did you mean?"

"The people who write those stories. You don't think they're right at all?"

"No, I don't think they're right. I'm not having sex with you. And I'd hope that if you were gay, you'd have better taste than to sleep with Steve Sarris. He's a nice guy, but he takes 'boring' to a whole new level." 

"Yeah, but--body language. And all the other things they talk about. You don't think they could be seeing…" He shrugged, suddenly floundering. "I don't know. Something." Like the way nothing seemed to go right when he or Dan had the day off. Like the fact that he hadn't even been trying to date lately. Like even though Rebecca had come back, and actually left her husband, Dan had only gone out with her two or three times, and then started turning up at Anthony's again after the show. Like the fact that since he'd first found that damned website, he'd spent entirely too much time trying to picture some of the stuff the stories had been about. 

Like the fact that it had been all too easy to envision most of it. 

"There isn't anything to see," Dan said, and he was still being way too rational about this. Then he frowned. "Is there?"

"No!" Casey said immediately. "Of course there isn't." At least, not with Dan giving him that look, there wasn't. Besides, he wasn't sure that there actually was, which was the whole point of this conversation. Then he shrugged. "I was just wondering if maybe there was, and we hadn't… I don't know. We hadn't noticed."

Dan gave Casey the look he usually reserved for Jeremy's weirder ideas. "If there was something between us, we'd have noticed. And since you're only wondering if there is because you read some crap on the Internet, then I can tell you two things: one, there's not, and two, you should not be allowed near a computer."

"Yeah, okay," Casey said, wondering why that didn't reassure him. "Maybe I am getting a little too wound up about this website."

Dan snorted. "You passed 'a little too wound up' a very long time ago, my friend. Now stop tying yourself in knots about the stupid website. When _Sports Illustrated_ starts asking us if we're planning a commitment ceremony, then you can worry about our image."

"I'm going on record now as saying that you're the one wearing the dress," he said, grinning. 

"Why me? You saw the Web page. You're the one who gets knocked up."

Casey had to laugh at that, and that seemed to get everything back to normal. As normal as it could be while Casey was still wondering whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he could imagine what it would be like to kiss Dan as easily as he could imagine what it would be like to get up and walk across the room, anyway.

***

"There has to be some way to make this stop!"

Natalie shrugged. "I don't know. Casey, it's no big deal. There's stuff all over the Internet about all kinds of people. Most of them are way more famous than you and Dan, so you ought to be happy about this."

" _Happy_? Wait until someone decides that you're having sex with Dana and see how happy you are!" 

She grinned. "I don't know. Dana's kind of hot." 

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. Partly because it's very disturbing and wrong--"

"And partly because your brain just went to the bad place," she finished, thwapping him lightly on the chest. 

"That's the bad place," Casey said, pointing at the nearest computer. No one was sitting at it, of course; it was after the show, and all the sane people had gone home. It was probably for the best, since he could hear his voice getting louder and louder. "The bad place where I'm having sex with Danny under the anchor desk." 

Natalie frowned. "Is there room? I don't think there would be. Not for actual _sex._ I mean, not if you wanted to hide. There'd be legs or something sticking out."

"Could you try to pay attention to what I'm saying?" he said, glaring at her. 

He'd known that Dan was in the newsroom, but he hadn't realized that he was paying attention to the conversation until Dan walked up, grabbing Casey by the arm and steering him in the other direction. 

"Yelling at Natalie will not make this go away, Casey," he said. 

"Well, nothing else has worked, so I think it's worth a try."

"Just ignore it," Dan suggested. "Come on, let's go get you some coffee, and you can pay me back for keeping you from getting beaten up by Natalie by writing the script for the soccer highlights."

"I'm writing the soccer highlights anyway. Dana says we get too many complaints when you write them." 

"Good," Dan said. "Then my master plan is working well."

"So come up with a master plan to deal with that… thing!"

"Ignore it," Dan repeated. "It isn't going away. It isn't hurting anything, and it's not even like we've been asked about it. And if you shut up about it, Natalie and Kim will stop thinking it's funny, and it'll all just be no big deal."

"Yeah, right. No big deal," Casey muttered. "Making me question my entire life is no big deal now?" 

He turned and walked away before Dan could answer. 

***

Nobody said anything about " _Sports Night_ Confidential" for the next several days, and Casey had almost stopped getting twitchy when he saw a group of two or more people gathered around a computer. Or, to be honest, he was getting really good at not showing it. Nothing about the website made the tabloids, and he did have to admit that Dan was probably right; nobody paid too much attention about what a handful of people posting to a hideously-colored website had to say about them. It was stupid, and everybody knew it was stupid, and even the people writing the stories admitted that it wasn't true, and so everything was copacetic. 

He said as much--at least, the part about everything being copacetic--while he and Danny were eating lunch in their office, and Dan nearly choked on his sandwich. "Everything except that you just used the word 'copacetic.' Could you possibly find a word a little less cool?"

"I'm cool," Casey argued. 

"Three words: Starland. Vocal. Band." 

"Oh, and Tom Waits is so much cooler."

"Casey, in all the possible parallel universes that could ever exist, there still could never be one in which the Starland Vocal Band is cooler than Tom Waits." 

Casey grinned. "Parallel universes are not cool, Danny." 

"I was trying to speak to you on your own, non-cool, level," he said, grinning back. Dan had been smiling a little more lately; there were still days--too many days--when he was quiet and kept to himself, days when the only time he really seemed like himself was when they were doing the show, but they were getting less frequent. Maybe Abby was helping. Maybe Dan was fighting his way back from whatever was wrong by himself. Maybe it was just that they weren't living with the constant fear of losing their jobs any more; that had definitely improved Casey's mood. 

And maybe he spent way too much of his mental energy noticing that Dan was smiling. _That stupid website again_ , he decided. Dan was right. If it took having a website pointing it out to him for him to think there might be something between him and Dan--on his side, anyway--then it was probably just paranoia. Stress could make you do weird things, after all, and he'd been working at _Sports Night_ long enough to have seen most of them. Maybe 'noticing Danny's ass' was one of the things stress could make you do. 

And maybe that was complete bull, but he figured he was going to run with it anyway.

***

Casey had been planning to spend his Sunday by himself, cleaning up his apartment and maybe going to the grocery store and all the things he generally let slide most of the time. Those plans had been completely scrapped, though, because Dan had showed up with a couple of videos they'd both wanted to see, and a shopping bag with enough junk food to last them through a minor siege. He didn't say anything about their conversation the night before, so Casey let him in.

He hadn't said anything about anything, really, except the movie they were watching, and Casey wondered if Dan's appearance here had anything at all to do with the way Casey had been acting. It might not have. It might have been all about something else. Some Danny-stuff. Maybe he was thinking about stuff, his family or Rebecca or any of the other stuff that tended to eat away at Dan, and he just decided he didn't want to think about it all alone. 

Maybe it didn't matter, because Casey had wanted to see this movie anyway, and there was junk food, and that was a decent enough reason for Dan to be here. 

Dan wasn't asking for an explanation of Casey's behavior, and that ought to be a good thing, but unfortunately, he couldn't quite get rid of the urge to give one anyway. He managed to wait until Dan put in the second tape, but then he just gave up. He might as well get this over with. Maybe it'd all be reasonably painless, and they could watch the second movie without this hanging over his head. 

His fingers were stained orange from the Cheetos, and he wiped them on the knee of his jeans, which were going to have to go in the hamper tonight anyway. He swallowed hard, looking down at the carpet, which was a dull institutional beige that he'd never really been aware of in all the three years he'd lived here, and wishing the earth would swallow him whole. "I'm not gay, Danny," he said.

"I never said you were," Dan said. "I keep telling you, don't worry about it. It's no big deal."

No big deal. How could Dan think this was no big deal? He looked up at Dan then, and couldn't decide if it made things easier or more difficult that Dan was smiling, a little, and didn't seem to be disturbed by this conversation. Confused, but not disturbed. "No big deal. Except that I want to kiss you right now."

Now Dan looked even more confused, which Casey supposed was fair enough. From where Dan was sitting, this probably looked as though it had come out of the blue. Mostly, he admitted, because from where Dan was sitting, it had. 

"So can I?" he asked. 

Dan blinked at him. "Huh?"

Talking just seemed entirely too complicated at the moment, and so he leaned in to kiss Danny, instead. 

It wasn't what he'd expected, mostly because when he'd thought about kissing Dan, Dan was actually kissing him back. In reality, though, Dan was sitting there quite still, not responding at all. 

"You're not funny, Casey," he said when Casey stopped. 

"That's okay. I'm not trying to be." 

"You're--" Dan shook his head, briefly, and then smiled. Casey kissed him again, and this time it was a lot more like what Casey had imagined, except for the part where they bumped noses like a couple of awkward teenagers, and Dan laughed. 

Casey frowned, not sure if he should feel insulted or not, until he decided that the appropriate reaction would be to kiss Dan again. So he did, and this time there was no nose-bumping, just Danny's mouth and the feel of Dan in his arms, really in his arms, not just being given a you're-my-best-friend kind of hug. Actually, Casey decided, this was a lot better than what he'd imagined.

Dan pulled back from him a little, blinking. "Can I ask what that was all about?"

"Kissing you?"

"That and the part where you just insisted you weren't gay."

"Oh. That." Casey shrugged. "I'm not."

"For future reference, 'I'm not gay' and 'I'm bisexual' give people completely different impressions of what's going on in your head." 

"Yeah, I know. But one of them's a hell of a lot easier to say."

"So have you ever--"

"No," Casey said quickly. "Thought about it, yeah, but I've never… There was Lisa, most of the time, and so even if there were guys I thought about, I didn't do anything. Just like I didn't do anything about any of the women I looked at."

Dan nodded. "Okay, that kind of makes sense, if you start from the premise that you're completely insane. I just have one question."

"Anything." 

"Why now?"

"Because I've been telling myself for a long time that you're my best friend."

Dan frowned. "You mean I'm not?"

"Yeah, you are. But I've been saying 'Dan's my best friend, and I love him,' and that's not exactly… It's right, but it's not completely right."

"Am I supposed to be following what you're saying here? Because if so, you might want to start using smaller words, or at least words that make sense."

"What I'm saying," Casey said, after a minute, "is that you're kind of right about that website being the reason I started thinking about this." Dan opened his mouth, and Casey rushed on before he could say anything. "Not because it wasn't there, but because it made me wonder if 'Dan's my best friend, and I love him,' was really the way I felt. And having a few dozen total strangers thinking that isn't really the way I act around you--that's one heck of a wake-up call." 

"So what you're saying is--? What, exactly, because you're still making less sense than Natalie on a sugar high."

"Is that you're my best friend. And I love you. And I think there's a pretty strong chance that I'm also in love with you."

Dan nodded, but didn't say anything, the silence stretching on until Casey started to feel sick. He was going to get the "I'm sorry, but I just don't feel that way about you," speech, he knew it. Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer. "Now would be a good time for you to say something about this, you know. Or I could just sit here looking like an idiot."

"You can do that anyway," Dan said, smiling a little. "I just don't know what to say."

"If I get a vote, 'I love you, too, Casey,' would be the frontrunner."

Quietly, Dan said, "Did you ever doubt that for a minute?"

"Would we be having this conversation if I didn't?"

"I've been in love with you since--since _Lone Star Sports_ , at least. I just figured it wasn't ever going to happen. Maybe that's why I didn't worry as much as you did about that website. I mean, yes, some of it's just _weird_ , but it wasn't telling me anything I didn't know."

"But you didn't say anything?"

He shrugged. "You had Lisa, and Dana, and Pixley… and besides, I wasn't all that good at hiding it, and you never noticed, so I figured you were just not noticing on purpose." Then he grinned. "I didn't realize you weren't noticing because you were a moron."

Casey smacked him on the arm. "That's for calling me a moron. And I'm noticing now."

"I see that. Are you going to start freaking out any time soon?"

Casey gave him a dirty look, but then decided that the degree to which he'd lost his cool over the " _Sports Night_ Confidential" website probably made that a fair question. "I don't think so." 

Dan smiled. "Good. I'd just have to smack you."

"I can think of a lot of things I'd rather you do," Casey said, grinning, and was pleased to see that Dan grinned back. 

"But you're not allowed on the Internet any more unless Charlie's supervising you," he added, still grinning. "It gives you ideas."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Casey said. "I think I'll be able to come up with plenty of ideas on my own."  


**Author's Note:**

> The bit about the office having glass walls is because until the final draft of my own fic "At Times Like These," I, er, overlooked that little fact myself. See? If I'm making fun of anyone, it's me.


End file.
